Silver Fern or Union Jack? New Zealanders to vote in flag referendum

In a debate that has swirled since the Second World War, New Zealanders have just hours to cast their votes on whether to keep the current national flag or adopt a new "Silver Fern" design.

The first in a two-stage binding referendum last year found in the silver fern a clear challenger from a field of five alternative flag designs. The current and second referendum asks New Zealanders to chose between the Melbourne-based New Zealander Kyle Lockwood design and the existing Blue Ensign featuring the Union Jack and Southern Cross.

The vote pits the current flag against the new Kyle Lockwood-designed Silver fern. Photo: elections.org.nz

"We want to see a flag by New Zealanders, for New Zealanders - a flag that represents the modern, vibrant and diverse country we are today, not the far flung colony of the British Empire we once were," reads the Change the NZ Flag website.

Four of the Commonwealth's 53 countries still have the Union Jack on their flag.

Polls hint at unease over the alternative design, with onlookers warning the new flag is a compromise rather than the best possible symbol for the country of 4.5 million people.

While a February 2014 Fairfax Media/Ipsos Poll found that 41.6 per cent of New Zealanders supported a change, a Newshub/Reid Research poll of 500 people taken over the summer found 30 per cent of those questioned wanted to change to Lockwood's design. Another nine per cent didn't know or care, while 61 per cent wanted to keep the existing flag.

Naysayers claim the costs of implementing the new flag will dwarf its advantages, with updates to passports estimated to cost $458 million, according to political party New Zealand First.

"All [adopting the new flag] will do is waste time, and money. The people who are voting TOWARDS changing this flag are not thinking about New Zealand's history. They don't acknowledge that their forefathers fought for and possibly died under, the flag that we have now," writes Susan Lester at the Don't change the New Zealand flag! petition page, which has so far attracted almost 60,000 signatures.

"Try and convince [Prime Minister John Key] to use the millions of dollars to fix up other issues that mean way, way more than this."

While arguments are set to continue long after March 30, the nation's flag has undergone several upheavals over the centuries.

The first New Zealand flag, representing the United Tribes of New Zealand, was adopted in March 1834.

It was followed by the Union Jack, which was then abandoned in 1902 in favour of the current flag.